Thursday, July 26, 2007

Holidays!


Our summer holidays started tonight - and so first thing tomorrow morning we're off to Les Omergues in Provence for at least 2 weeks of relaxation, family time, and generally all things good and outdoorsy. I just can't wait - and it'll be so fun to see how Jack develops during our time away. This week saw him not only pulling himself to his feet with greater ease but also climbing up the 4 stairs leading to the bathroom and his bedroom. Yep, it's true - he's off and exploring the whole apartment, not just the living room and he often seems to have a set pattern to his travels (almost as though he was making a baby-shaped map in his head). I'd love to know what that map looked like, as I'm sure it'd have little in common with our own adult perceptions. Categories would probably include: things to climb over (our wooden chairs), things to pull on (our books, DVDs, electric cables, sigh..), things to suck (any of his toys or our cushions), things to get lifted up onto (his bike, his chair, our couch), things to slide off (the couch!), and generally places to get into trouble (which is basically everywhere - and his various small bruises prove it). Now we'll just have to wait and see what he thinks of the house, and way of life, in Les Omergues....

Monday, July 23, 2007

Booklists.....

relevantgirl listed 100 random books and noted whether she'd read them or not. It seemed like a daft enough thing to do that I thought I'd copy her list and do the same.

If you're interested, copy the list below.

Bold the books you’ve read.*
Italicize the ones you want to read.*
Leave in normal text the ones that don’t interest you.*
Put in ALL CAPS those you haven’t heard of.*
Put a couple of asterisks by the ones you recommend.

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) **
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) **
9. OUTLANDER (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A FINE BALANCE (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling) - to be delivered Wednesday!
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)**
16. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
17. FALL ON YOUR KNEES (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)**
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)**
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)**
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)**
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)**
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert) - but Ben's favourite!
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell) - oops, caught out!
35.The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) - received as a present 20 years ago but not yet read... (thanks Angela Sobey :-)
36. THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH (Ken Follett)
37. THE POWER OF ONE (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much Is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)**
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43.Confessions of a Shopahaulic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)**
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens) **
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)**
56. THE STONE ANGEL (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
5. FIFTH BUSINESS (Robertson Davies)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)**
71. Bridget Jones's Diary (Helen Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson)**
76. THE SUMMER TREE (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)**
81. NOT WANTED ON THE VOYAGE (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)**
83.Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. WIZARD'S FIRST RULE (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. BLINDNESS (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. IN THE SKIN OF A LION (Michael Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (William Golding)**
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)**
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)*********

There you go - now it's your turn (but keep me informed, I want to know what's on your reading table.... at the moment I have Mary Higgins Clark 'La Nuit est mon royaume' and 'Soil and Soul' by Alistair McIntosh ...)

Monday, July 16, 2007

So, this is what my feet are for!



Mr Jack's discovered his feet! Although, he doesn't yet know they can be used for walking, he's already pretty happy to know he can use them to feel big and tall, and to look over the couch at the toys below him on the floor!


The first we knew of it was during his nap on Saturday. He suddenly started hollering as if to say, "quick, come and look at me!" And when we went to see what the matter was, we found Mr Jack as happy as can be on his two feet. Needless to say, we've now lowered the position of his bed and are wondering just what will happen next....




Monday, July 09, 2007

Eight months old

and the changes just keep on coming!

As you can see, Jack's now got 'grown-up' toys with buttons to press and dials to turn! He loves such games but prefers crawling across our wooden floor to get to things he shouldn't touch; you know, electric wires, plugs, and - at the moment - the blue box containing some crystal glasses and which is stuck under the buffet (small pause as I go and collect a rather dusty Jack from the corner of the room where he'd discovered we'd more plugs - now he's sitting on my lap!) Last night he even pushed himself up onto his feet so that he could clamber into his little chair....He thinks it's all great fun and, I have to admit, so do we (though, we can also see the work that lies ahead of us).

As usual, watch this space for more fun and games...

;-)